slow hop creep? diacetyl a week after kegging!

[abrewer12345]

hey all- recently been developing diacetyl…about a week late. beer gets moves into a keg and tastes/smells great! a week later, a buttery mess. we’ve pbw’d the kegs, changed the tap lines and pbw’d them as well. havent changed our fermentation practices at all either. any ideas why this would be happening? thanks!

 

[Rob2010SS]

hey all- recently been developing diacetyl…about a week late. beer gets moves into a keg and tastes/smells great! a week later, a buttery mess. we’ve pbw’d the kegs, changed the tap lines and pbw’d them as well. havent changed our fermentation practices at all either. any ideas why this would be happening? thanks!

Can you provide a timeline on your most recent experience?

- What did you brew?
- What yeast did you use?
- What temp did you ferment at and for how long?
- Did you ramp up temperature at any point during the end of fermentation?
- How long did you let it sit at the elevated temps?
- What was your overall fermentation timeline?


There's probably more that I'm missing but that'll get us started.

 

[abrewer12345]

RVA manchester ale on a NEIPA. 5 days at 66, 2 days at 70, dry hop at 60 for 2-3 days, drop temp to 32 and carb for 5 days and then move to keg.

 

[Qhrumphf]

Is it perpetually cold after that dry hop? If it's too cold for your yeast then it's less likely to be hop creep.

In my experience hop creep tends to produce more diacetyl precursor than diacetyl itself, and it's taken a while for diacetyl to rear it's head, once the precursor oxidizes into diacetyl.

Decarbonate a sample and check the gravity. If it's lower when you started crashing it, then perhaps it's hop creep.

 

[Qhrumphf]

It's also possible that you're just rushing it and crashing it to 60 before it's conditioned. I'm not familiar with that particular strain but a lot of English (and English origin) strains do not like premature temp drops.

 

[couchsending]

It depends on the hops. Some have more enzymes than others. Dry hopping at 55 does help to prevent refermentation but not always.

Always do a forced diacetyl test before crashing. Take a sample, put it in a vial of sorts, shake it up, heat to 160 for 10 minutes, then cool and smell/taste when it’s cold.

You’re most likely also getting a small amount of o2 pickup when kegging.

 

[abrewer12345]

it seems like we’ve figured out the way to fix this during ferm going forward- any recommendations for fixing it while its in the keg so the whole batch isnt dead? thanks for the help!

 

[couchsending]

it seems like we’ve figured out the way to fix this during ferm going forward- any recommendations for fixing it while its in the keg so the whole batch isnt dead? thanks for the help!

You’d have to krausen it.

Letting it warm back up and leaving it for a week or so at room temp might work.

Kinda tough if it’s already carbonated.